Phantom Noise Paperback – April 1, 2010

Phantom Noise is an emotionally engaging and intellectually refreshing volume of modern poetry. I enjoyed this collection because the collection, as a whole, finds a balance between the poems that focus on the war and the poems that focus on the life of the culturally re-assimilated solider, while even finding room for a few poems that stray entirely from Turner's central war-based themes.I found this volume of poetry different than a lot of modern poetry and it was appealing for that reason. My first thought was that Turner doesn't read like your typical bourgeois MFA professor-poet that dominate the world of modern poetry. But Turner does have an MFA and he is a professor. He is able to transcend conventions and designations that society heaves upon us, and it comes through in each of these poems. Neither he nor his speakers are just a war veteran or professor or poet or father or lover or survivor or witness to trauma - there is an amalgamation of all. His speaker's are fully fleshed human beings weaving intense narratives that are capable invoking emotive empathy.Given the highly polarizing subject, Turner's poems are never polemic or didactic. His most sacred duty as a poet is as a witness and in this capacity he vigilantly serves the reader as genuinely as he has served his country. This was a fantastic volume of poetry that I will be reading and re-reading for some time to come.Highly Recommended!

Around-the-world-solo-sailor Reese Palley wrote, "Our world is only peopled by what is inside our heads." Is it so unusual, then, for combat veterans to have their world peopled by horrors few who have not been there can understand? In his poems, Brian Turner captures the struggle of the human brain as it tries blend inhuman war experiences into every-day living. A phantom noise is the result, a background noise that is always present and is sometimes oddly dominant at the damnedest times. His beautifully crafted poem, "At Lowe's Home Improvement Center," gives us the returned combat veteran reacting to the common sights and sounds of a typical American hardware store, sights and sounds that uncontrollably trigger the common sights and sounds of war carnage.These poems don't condemn. They don't preach. There's no paean to patriotism here, nor - God forbid - glory. There's only the clean, crisp, English line stating blunt facts with vivid imagery, with a beauty and an acceptance that allows Turner to put inside our own heads what it must be like to be ripped from civilization, sent through hell, and then returned to civilization, our world newly peopled with demons we can't cast out. Ever.Powerful stuff, these poems. Leaders who must send us to war should read them before doing so to understand the full measure of the butcher's bill that will be paid.

You don't need to have read Here, Bullet, Turner's book that burned up the peace poetry world a couple years ago, to read this book; but I'm grateful to have this update on the state of his craft and his mind. Brian Turner is an honest, straightforward poet, not ashamed of what he knows and trusting enough to share what he has experienced. What he does best is demonstrate how he takes his particular array of experiences--all his experiences, physical and psychological--and makes some sort of sense of them. There's no preaching, no pretense here. I'm sure I'd learn a lot from his classes in creative writing, but I'm even more certain that I've enjoyed his side of our epistolary relationship, held up through his poetry. In my unrelenting encouragement of new poets to let the 19th century poets speak for their century and accept the challenge of representing your own century, Brian Turner and a handful of others (such as Seth Abramson, Tony Hoagland, Patricia Smith, and others) are exhibit A for how to do it successfully. (And I'm grateful to find another poet who seems to be as haunted by the metaphorical weight of the Mogul destruction of the great library of Baghdad--"and the river ran black with ink"--as I am.)

Afghan combat vet, so I'm definitely biased in my love of this guy. I'm not breaking down his poetry like some reviews do. It elicits a lot of emotion in a me, who is not a very emotional person. I truly hope that he is the voice of our generation's wars, the same way that Wilfred Owen was for WWI. To me, he blends the madness, beauty, chaos, and serenity that as far as I know can only be found in a combat zone. I have never felt more alive, every nerve in my body alert and roaring, than when I was being shot at in anger. Not happy, not scared... simply ungodly alert. It's hard to explain. This author resurrects the strange feelings of combat like no other I've read.

The poetry is rather good. The title of the collection is quite appropriate as this Vietnam combat veteran was profoundly affected by some of the poems which resonated with his own personal experience of war in another time and place. It remains with you forever apparently, at least it does for this old warrior forty some years on.

Brian Turner is a wonderful poet who tells of the horror of war in Iraq . He is right up there with the other War poets from previous wars . This is must read for those who served and those who seek an understanding of this complex war.

Turner's poetry is concise and poignant. His observations about war and their devastating quality on both physical geography and mental condition enable his work to be pointed and haunting. I am very satisfied with the book and seller.

Turner is a gifted poet and writer.

He is a poet of witness, writing powerful and compelling works. His poems give unflinchingly accurate descriptions leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.I feel that his earlier experience of other cultures made him an unusual American soldier with a broader view of conflicts than is the norm.It was my privilege to introduce Brian Turner's poems at our Poetry day at Huddersfield University with the Holmfirth Writers' Group.I read out 'Phantom Noise' and 'Helping her Breathe'. I felt that the two poems were such a contrast in pace and theme that it gave a glimpse into his range.There is optimism in the last poems in the book that gives hope that he will continue his writing beyond the constraints of war.

This book of poems is indescribably powerful. It is about men coming back from war - these men who are vicious and heroes in equal measure. This dichotomy of human nature. You feel viscerally what it is like to come back from a bullet torn place to a front porch where there's nothing going on. I can't recommend both of Brian's books of poetry more. He is a remarkable remarkable writer.

An interesting book, well written, interesting cover. Would read again.

Firstly, I must say that I paid full price for this book and that I was very disappointed with the poor quality of the publication. Not only are the pages of poor quality but the cover and pages themselves are all creased in the edition which I received. On to the poetry: I absolutely loved Here Bullet and would recommend it to anyone interested in beautiful, haunting poetry. Strangely, Turner's language has both a modern realistic bite but manages to be lyrical too. I was really excited about reading Phantom Noise because I imagined that he would have integrated his war experiences within the writing style that he had already developed. This didn't seem to be the case. I still have to read some more poems but it does seem that Turner runs the risk of becoming a spokesman for the common soldier (no mean role, but tragic with so much poetic talent) a minor war poet, instead of the classical modern life poet that he was and could be.